NBA Live 20 Delayed Until Late 2019 as Team Plans a Different Approach

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by Junior Moe

At the end of the day the product has to sell itself. Live has had more than enough time and opportunity to reestablish itself. This gen is almost over. People have played the demo. People have bought Live for cheap. It was the top selling game in January one year when it was 5 bucks. The game has undoubtedly improved. Reading online you'd swear that there's some clamoring for an alternative basketball game. Yet and still Live sales remain flat or not improving at all. People love to compare Live to 2K but at its core, 2K is a deep and good game. It's not perfect. It has issues. But its a good game. IMO, Live isn't a good game. Forget basketball, I'm strictly speaking about something I would want to play. I mean, it's alright. But I can just as easily forget about it like I do dozens of other games a year. That's why I think its languishing. Plus, there are so many ways to play good games now for cheap. Live isn't competing with 2K; its competing with every other mid tier Ok game out here now. I see people here lobbying for folks to "give Live a try". I have seen this since the series returned. People have given it a try. It just isn't resonating. That's all on EA and the devs.

I agree. I want Live to succeed. But they had the past decade to get their ship in order. Especially on the years they canceled or delay. Cancelled 13 and 14 was still regarded as a terrible game. There has been a lot of patient with their games, but at some point they have to get there. I know there have been resource issues especially when they had to share Madden developers to help them get back on track.
I think a lot of it was their approach. Mike Wang had an interview where he said when he worked there, their main focus was "How do we beat 2k". Once you have that mindset, you already failed. The main focus should always be "How can we can better and innovative each year". Once you become more concern about a competitor over improving yourself, you are already in a losing battle.

[inkcil]

Ksuttonjr76 just touched on the main thing Live had going for it...it feels "organic."

I've seen guys dribble the ball off their foot, trip and fall...little funny random organic things that could actually happen in real life. It's like the characters make human mistakes sometimes.

I also like the way it "feels" when you dunk.

Last thing is fast breaks...I've actually seen 3-2 or 3-1 fast breaks in the game. Again, just like in real life, every defender does not Sprint back full speed on D the first split nano-second that the ball is turned over.

[golfingbuffalo]

I think it means one of four things:

1.) EA is focusing on the Online leagues (Live's strength) and will abandon NBA season mode, and go with a different monetization option.
2.) EA has decided to go the arcade route with a new NBA Jam / NBA street instead.
3.) EA is focusing on Nintendo Switch which the
Live developers talked about back in 2017. Possibly the first EA sport title to be Cross play with Xbox? Maybe Live drops the annual editions and is continuously updated model?
4.) Cancelation of NBA Live.

**One thing to consider and research, Would the NBA allow EA to alter the terms of the agreement and allow Live to go F2P, while 2k still is having to pay and charge full price for a NBA product?**.

[ksuttonjr76]

Quote: Originally Posted by inkcil

Ksuttonjr76 just touched on the main thing Live had going for it...it feels "organic." I've seen guys dribble the ball off their foot, trip and fall...little funny random organic things that could actually happen in real life. It's like the characters make human mistakes sometimes. I also like the way it "feels" when you dunk. Last thing is fast breaks...I've actually seen 3-2 or 3-1 fast breaks in the game. Again, just like in real life, every defender does not Sprint back full speed on D the first split nano-second that the ball is turned over.

To be fair, I don't play Live nearly as much I play NBA 2K. It could be a case that I merely haven't gotten a chance to see patterns develop. Having said that...I wish that I could take out their programming/algorithms for cause and effect actions and drop that into NBA 2K. In Live, a shot is a shot, a contest is a contest, a steal is a steal, a block is a block, and a rebound is rebound. It's that damn simple. Live doesn't have all these stupid instances where the game "cheats" to force a particular outcome like when a player shoots, but the shot is blocked. However, the game makes the ball take a odd trajectory like the block never happened, and the shooter is still able to make the shot.

[Kayotick]

How I feel regarding NBA Live is that I completely love the streetball aspect of the game but that same fun factor never translated over to my NBA season because it just never felt the same. I am not sure if it was a lack of depth in the franchise mode, or a lack of the game just not translating well into a more SIM style of play when it comes to your season. Because let's be honest here: Streetball and NBA are two different styles of gameplay.

If they do decide to scrap NBA Live one thing that I think would make for an awesome game experience would be to take everything you already have in place for the streets and expand on this mode to include seasons, tourneys, more events, and more innovation. I am not saying turn it into NBA Street from back in the day but continue building on what you already have for this mode which is fantastic.

The bottom line for me: Live Street Mode is awesome but the actual NBA Season/Franchise portion of the game not so much.

[lon515]

Quote: Originally Posted by ILLSmak

I think eas problem is that they can only do gameplay well. I think it is potentially Sim, but stuff like deep modes, deep coaching, animations etc all contribute to what you believe Sim is. That's what they sucked at, but I've never felt any more arcade on live than any other game, when I'm immersed and going vs people online. Sure weird stuff happens but it happens in every game. Live has some issues but they aren't far from sim. Depth, however... But depth actually inhibits balance if you focus on that first. You end up with too much stuff that there's no way to balance well. -Smak

I have to disagree with you here. I bought live 18,19, (also16 and 10 lol.) I'm one of the few who enjoy playing live over 2k. Live is fun to me because the ONE mode reminds me of NBA street.

However the game behaves nothing like a sim. No matter how contested a layup is it will go in and that's true where ever you shoot, contests don't matter it you get a good release it will go in. 2k rewards you for playing good defense.

I do agree with you on the modes though. The lack of depth also kills the sim hopes for the game, but nothing else really makes the game a sim either, I'd wish they just go full blown arcade cause they can't compete with 2k at a sim style game, we have 10+ years of evidence.

[zrohman]

Quote: Originally Posted by lon515

I have to disagree with you here. I bought live 18,19, (also16 and 10 lol.) I'm one of the few who enjoy playing live over 2k. Live is fun to me because the ONE mode reminds me of NBA street. However the game behaves nothing like a sim. No matter how contested a layup is it will go in and that's true where ever you shoot, contests don't matter it you get a good release it will go in. 2k rewards you for playing good defense. I do agree with you on the modes though. The lack of depth also kills the sim hopes for the game, but nothing else really makes the game a sim either, I'd wish they just go full blown arcade cause they can't compete with 2k at a sim style game, we have 10+ years of evidence.

Get outta here.

In 2k, you can stand there dribbling and do nothing, the defender can press the button to reach for the ball, they can touch the ball only, and be called for a reach.

In 2k, you can be rewarded for good defense, which is actually NOT sim. If you watch the NBA, many times good defense is played and it still goes in. Someone like Harden can go into iso, put a dribble move on, and get JUST ENOUGH space to get a shot, but be heavily contested, and it can still go in.

Sometimes open shots are missed, etc.

I know this is the case for 2k too... But I've seen people miss several layups in online play, based on rating, they don't all go in, it is definitely chance.

Live used to have them all go in, now they only MOSTLY go in if you have a really good rating.

You are entitled to believe Live gameplay is less sim. But I would challenge you and agree that the reason why people believe it is less sim is because there isn't any depth with coaching options or other things. Also, with such limited editing options and other gameplay modes people can feel the gameplay is lesser simply based on that too.

[Smallville102001]

Quote: Originally Posted by illwill10

Live 11, 13, and 17 were cancelled. So having 3 games cancelled within 7 years isn't good for business. But it does show EA has been patient. For me, I think next generation will have a big impact. If it was any other year, I think they could delay this year and slightly delay next year. But with next generation coming out, it surely will have an impact. Usually sports release a next gen version at console launch, even if it is just stripped down game to show off the power of next gen graphics. I don't think Live can even focus on that when they are still trying to get the current gen down pact.

Right and before this thread I had complete forgotten that 17 was also cancelled. So yeah if 20 is cancelled that would be the 4th time in just the last 10 years.